Buried Knives (A Bucky Barnes enemies to lovers story)

Part 16: Sticky Situations

She stired. Her face feeling flushed and swollen, warm from slumber. Stretching she burrowed deeper into the warm sheets and...-

Fumbling backwards she almost fell off the bed. Pushing herself up into a sitting position she looked down on the sleeping figure of James Barnes.

She surpressed a shiver. What the hell had she been doing falling asleep on the winter soldier, her head nestled into his shoulder?

She needed to get a grip.

Barnes was half sitting, half lying against the headboard. His head titling towards his chest. Strands of dark hair falling into his fluttering eyelashes. His metallic arm strewn over his chest, the other one at his side, fingers stretching ever so slightly towards her. Like they'd been resting on her before she moved.

He wasn't a peaceful sleeper.

His brows were furrowed and he was mumbling. Lips moving silently in a secret language of sleep, too quiet for her to decipher. Not that she wanted to.

Something in the back of her head reminded her how easy it would be to kill him right now. No one would ever know. She'd escape off into the rainy night and never be heard from again.

Her fingers itched with the sticky memory of blood. Blood drenching her hands and clothes. The cloying, metaling twang that leaked onto the air, coating her teeth when she smiled.

She pulled the duvet higher up his chest before wiggling out of the bed. Bare feet silently touching down on the carpet.

Padding her way across the cramped room towards the bathroom. Her body feeling heavy and feverishly warm.

Barnes' bed was still perfectly made, their plates stacked haphazardly on the bedside locker between them. Somewhere in the room an air conditioning vent hummed.

The bathroom door creaked and clicked behind her. The flouresent lights flicking on and highlighting the dull white porcelain.

She leaned back against the cool wood, sliding down it until she sat on the icy blue tiles. Their chill biting into her bare limbs. Folding her knees into her chest and leaning her head back she shut her eyes.

She felt it coming on again. A wave of sickness. Like an acid bath stiring inside her.

She didn't know exactly what her relationship would be with Barnes. Enemies? Unfortunately Allies? Friend? Either way she didn't want to wake him when she started spilling her guts.

It wasn't pain per say, the feeling trailing down her spine, through her limps. More of an achy wrongness. Like the shiver you get in darkened alleys, like unseen eyes watching you. That feeling made physical.

It turned her stomach, tieing it up like a noose. Thankfully she was able to make it to the toilet. Clutching the porcelain sides as her dinner was introduced to the toilet bowl.

She hated it. The powerless shiver that ran down her back. If anyone crept up behind her she wouldn't know because her treacherous body couldn't keep itself together. Trembling like an ungreatful welp. She-

A hand touched her shoulder. She swung around and kicked it in the stomach.

'It' was James Barnes.

James Barnes wasn't happy.

"Fuck's sake Alex." He grunted, clutching his stomach. Clothes and hair still rumpled from sleep. He stumbled back.

"Sorry," she mumbled. Right as another wave of nausia left her with her head in the toilet.

Bile stung the back of her throat, prickling tears in her eyes with a thousand tiny needles.

Her stomach was shredded, she was falling apart.